by Kara-Leah Grant I need to tell you a story, about a woman coming home after spending eight years overseas. This woman had left seeking fame & fortune, certain that out there in the world lay her destiny. She came home broken, tormented by her mind, which had betrayed her and cost her the world. Everything she valued - her fiance, her friends, the town she'd made her home in, her sense of Self... all of it had been torn away. She came home with nothing, except a diagnosis of … [Read more...]
Ten Ways to Deal with a Crisis in Confidence
by Kara-Leah Grant You've finally done it - committed to that big dream of yours even though you're shaking down into your boots. You've taken that big, bold step that shifts your dream from being something inside your head, to something that other people can see. You've maybe even a good way towards making that dream of yours an actual reality out there in the big wide world. Maybe you finally pitching an article to a national magazine, or entered in your first marathon, or recorded your … [Read more...]
Getting back on the bandwagon: The evolution of a home practice
by Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat I'm practicing again, most days. Happened as soon as I arrived in Glenorchy and put Samuel back into childcare. It happened because I made it a priority. It happened because I knew I needed it. Craved it even. It happened because I wanted it. It wasn't that I'd ever stopped practicing - I still was. Every day I taught yoga, I practiced asana. At home, I practiced bits and pieces or asana here and there, a seated session after dinner, a … [Read more...]
How not to screw up your children (too much)
by columnist Gabrielle Harris, The Suburban Yogini When I was thirty I literally FELL pregnant. I was living in a small town in Greece teaching English and my partner was living in NZ. I liked to think of it as an immaculate conception but the Greek mamas liked to think of it differently, I was the spawn of the devil, unmarried and pregnant. My daughter was a gift, a message in a bottle, learning and a teaching all rolled into one big fat ball. Not that I knew any of that. Roll forward … [Read more...]
Money is not the be-all and end-all for scoring life
by Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat On Saturday, I was on a Skype call with a sales rep from MediaPass. He's been great at helping me navigating my way through the implementation of a subscription system for The Yoga Lunchbox, answering all my many and varied questions with great patience - except for one thing. I wanted to use a subscription system where people could decide how much they wanted to pay to receive premium access to The YLB. I asked him about letting people choose how … [Read more...]
How to find your inner teacher and move with intuition and grace
By guest author Maddy Schafer Are you consistently inconsistent? I am. I’m a one DVD yogini. That is, a friend shared her yoga DVD and I got hooked. I quickly memorised the fifteen minute morning yoga series, and started doing it on the floor at work a few days a week. Happily I work in an environment where there is carpet and this is possible. But that isn't the beginning of my yoga story. I don’t know how many years prior it was that I decided to start stretching at work in my breaks. I … [Read more...]
On the importance of closing energy leaks in the system
by Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat On Tuesday, in conversation with Lucinda, my super-duper virtual assistant, I noted that of the 1200 subscribers to The Monthly Digest, 378 had never opened an newsletter. It's no surprise really - we live in a world saturated with information, and many of us are in total overwhelm. The quantity of stuff and ideas and articles and videos and books and e-courses and e-books available to us is staggering. We say yes just in case we miss something … [Read more...]
Is our addiction to Spirits a symptom of an UnSpirited society?
by Melissa Billington MYOGA’s second focus in the deeper part of winter has been on the 7th chakra - Sahasrara - a place of surrender, acceptance, unity consciousness and spirit. As I let my vision be filled by these ideas, I became more and more aware of society’s mass disconnection from a sense of anything larger than ourselves – from Source - and how this shows up in our levels of medication and self-medication. It is no accident that alcohol is called ‘spirits’ - it shares the same … [Read more...]
Take everything as it comes, discomfort and comfort alike
by Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat The day we arrived at Anahata Yoga Retreat, nature and God were both sodden, and the retreat was wrapped in the clouds. I hadn’t thought to check the driving conditions before arriving at Anahata, and Samuel and I were traveling in my long, low, loaded-up station wagon. I made it round the first muddy gravel corner and thought. “Nope, there’s no way I’m going up there.” There was a sense of defeat in letting the road stop me now, after I’d got … [Read more...]
Eating with the Seasons: Springtime
by Valerie Love September and October have always been my favourite months of the year. Growing up in the northeastern United States, these months marked the arrival of autumn and bright red, orange and yellow leaves on trees, fresh crisp apples and cider, and sweet pumpkin pie -some of my all time favourite things. Here in New Zealand, September and October are just as beautiful, but instead mark the start of spring. In Wellington, instead of the brilliant red and orange maple trees … [Read more...]